Cool News

A few years ago I was a featured artist in Somerset Studio magazine. Now they have a new publication that is a compilation of previous articles, and my work has been included. You can see the magazine here:



As always, thanks for looking!

Sneak Peak of Rozelle Sketchbook

Here are some pages from the latest sketchbook event that I am participating in:

You can see more about the project at: http://www.facebook.com/rozelleartistsguild?ref=ts

Sizzix Tea Cup Blog Hop

Here's a sneak peak of my decorated Sizzix teacup. To see the rest of the photos go to: http://www.roanndesigns.com/blog/?p=362 after 9 AM on Wednesday 4/14.

Journal Art set to music

This is my first "music video" featuring calligraphy from various journals and the song by Norah Jones called "Those sweet words."



And here is a video of me lettering in our class this summer in Chicago, thanks to Hiroko Shimizu:

Workshop with Charles Pearce

Over the weekend the Memphis Calligraphy Guild hosted a workshop with Charles Pearce.  The topic was pen manipulation, and we worked with uppercase and lowercase Romans. 

As he demonstrated on butcher paper at the front, we were able to follow along with his beautiful handouts. These handouts are the best I have ever seen -- with extraordinary clarity, drawings and notes. Late in the day on Sunday he demonstrated this funky alphabet based on the work of Arthur Baker.

One of the demos that Charles did in front of class:

My own work on some cold press watercolor paper:

More From Letters Mingle Souls

There were so many exhibits at conference, and each one was equally breathtaking.  This first photo is from the TreeWhispers Exhibit, which was hung in a kind of atrium from the ceiling and could be seen from both the main floor and the balcony above, where I took this photo.

Then there was the faculty exhibit. I took a number of photos, but since most of the pieces were under glass, they were hard to photograph.  Here are two that caught my eye -- the first one is Rosie Kelly's book, which was in a case. I can never get enough of looking at her work!

This is just one panel of many that were hanging from a clothesline (for lack of a better word) by Lisa Englebrecht. I believe it was a book, with all the pages hanging next to each other.

When I arrived at conference I was greeted with excitement about my Martin Luther King painting.  I was so honored and humbled that it was placed at the entrance to the Chicago guild's Exploration 2008 exhibit in this very prominent position. I still can't quite get over it.

One of the unique features about this conference were the Mini Workshops.  It was like having a conference within a conference.  Here is the book I made in one of the classes I took.  It was so cool -- I just had to know how to do this beaded binding! Class was taught by Barbara Mann.

I have more photos, and will keep posting them until I run out!  My dining room table is still covered with supplies from conference, and will have to be cleaned up before we have guests this weekend. And the big Martin Luther King painting is still in a box in the corner!  Shipping that piece home was an adventure!  

Gestural Writing with Yves Leterme at conference part 2

Here are photos of the lettering that I did in the workshop. Yves' preferred lettering tool is the humble and unloved Speedball C5.  So many experienced and established calligraphers (Sheila Waters comes to mind) have said that any Speedball nib smaller than a 3 is useless because of inconsistent manufacturing.*  But Yves swears by them, and after a bit of warming up, they worked fine.  It was hard to believe that we could get such lines from a lowly Speedball nib. The white paper is Arches text wove, and the darker papers are Bugra. The abstract color square in the first photo is done with my old favorites, Twinkling H2Os.

These little abstract marks were about 2 X 3" and done over some watercolor backgrounds that I had previously done in a journal.

* In a note of clarification Sheila said, "I would be talking about not to expect predictable sharp thicks and thins for relatively slow, precise formal writing. Gestural writing is quite different, needing speed, and Speedball smaller C series nibs would be fine for that....I would never use the term "useless" about any tool, especially nibs, because it depends on what you want to use them for..."  

Thank you, Sheila, for the explanation.

Gestural Writing with Yves Leterme at conference

My class at conference was gestural writing with Yves Leterme. He was an excellent teacher, patiently taking us through exercises to help us deconstruct the letterforms and then reconstruct them in a thoughtful but spontaneous-looking way. He was self-effacing, honest and generous with his demonstrations. He also is an amazing communicator, considering that English is his second language. It was lovely to lieten to his lilting accent!

We did pages and pages of practice work! Then around the middle of the 2nd day we started to do some things on individual sheets, like this repetition exercise, when we were allowed to add color! Everything that we did during the week was a progression, building in succession on what he had taught before. It was challenging to remember it all and implement in into new exercises as the week went on. Here are some samples:

Joan Machinchick's "artifex" exercise with color added:

Yves' "artifex" demo:

Another demo by Yves:

Two Japanese women were in our class and they were like stealth calligraphers! They just sat quietly and knocked out some amazing work! Here are a few pieces by Hiroko Shimizu that just blew us all away:

This is another example of the repetition exercise, done by Barbara Beattie:

Another repetition exercise by Yukimi Annand:

Neuland Workshop in New Orleans

The workshop in New Orleans was great! It was so good to see everyone again. Here are some of the beautiful lettering samples they came up with in only two days:

First days at Island Magic

Here is one of the buildings on the school's campus. It was beautiful when the sun finally came out.

This is one of the projects that we made in Michael Jacobs' sketchbook and journals class. It has two portfolios, two mini-sketchbooks, and another small journal. Very cool.


This is the view from the front of the ferry on the way to Victoria. We passed through a chain of small islands in very wet weather.
The conference is going very well. It has a comfortable feeling because the campus is so nice, and because there are fewer people here than usual. More to follow .....